Jungle Brothers

The Jungle Brothers surfaced ahead of the jazz-rap experiments later associated with De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Digable Planets, yet they never found favor with either rap listeners or wider audiences, perhaps because they folded together house rhythms, Afrocentric themes, an obsession with James Brown, and jazz loops—any one of which had already launched other acts. A major-label contract led to the 1989 release of Done by the Forces of Nature, an album some critics later called an ignored classic, but the record and its follow-up, J Beez Wit the Remedy, both failed to reach listeners.

Mike Gee (born Michael Small in Harlem, New York), DJ Sammy B (born Sammy Burwell in Harlem, New York), and Baby Bam (born Nathaniel Hall in Brooklyn, New York) assembled in the mid-1980s and began recording for the dance label Idler. Those sessions produced Straight Out the Jungle, issued in early 1988. Its Afrocentric perspective earned the trio membership in the Native Tongue Posse, the loose collective founded by hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa and featuring Queen Latifah as well as, later, De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest. The album’s most unconventional track, “I’ll House You,” paired the group with house producer Todd Terry and foreshadowed the hybrid style later known as hip-house.

Although Straight Out the Jungle sold modestly, Warner Bros. signed the Jungle Brothers in 1989 and issued Done By the Forces of Nature that same year. Released around the same time as De La Soul’s groundbreaking 3 Feet High and Rising, the album received equally strong reviews yet was largely ignored by the public. A four-year silence after Done By the Forces of Nature, caused chiefly by Warner Bros.’ promotional decisions, further reduced any chance of mainstream acceptance. When J Beez Wit the Remedy finally appeared in summer 1993, the label mounted a major campaign, but the push did not translate into sales. Warner Bros. repeated the pattern by holding back the next album, Raw Deluxe, until mid-1997. V.I.P. arrived in early 2000, and All That We Do followed in 2002.